Final Fight

Sometimes even I get bored of talking about Rareware platformers and how great the Nintendo 64 is, so here’s something else for a change. Arcade beat-em-ups were all the rage in the late 80’s and early 90’s, in America and Japan especially, because we only had arcade machines in the cafes at our swimming pools. The obvious one that I could rabbit on about is 1987’s Street Fighter, the idea is that for small fee, you could games that offered insane amounts of violence and start fights between a player and a computer or a player and his friend, without getting electrocuted or getting your face punched in. Street Fighter sold loads and Capcom intended on making a sequel fairly quickly, however, they changed its name and concept after changing the gameplay to a more side scrolling action adventure game, hence why we now have Final Fight.

Final Fight is the timeless story of former wrestler, Mike Haggar who is elected Mayor of Metro City, however fairly quickly a criminal organisation kidnaps his daughter. Enlisting the help of Cody and Guy (if you’re playing the SNES version, like me, Guy is absent) he goes after them HIMSELF, because nothing bad could happen to the mayor whilst taking down a criminal gang, except I don’t know, GETTING KILLED! However, as far as action Mayors go, Haggar is probably the pinnacle, I can’t see Boris Johnson going after terrorist gangs in London, although as this picture demonstrates, it’d be fantastic.

Obviously because this is an arcade game, it’s very simple to pick up and play and the game is just BASH! THWACK! KA-DOOSH! for however long it is or until you die. I found that a playthrough with the 1960’s Batman theme in the background and adding my own sound effects highly entertaining. Yes, whilst just hitting enemies is a bit tiresome, it’s not like the game was designed for long ended play, it’s merely, beating up bad guys, collecting highscores and typing your name as “Ass” on the leaderboard, but is considerably fun and feverishly addictive. I’m sorry this review’s quite short and to the point this week, but that’s because this game is quite short and to the point.